It has just got so much easier for those who own or manage land to plant more trees and extend the amount of our native woodland with lots of realtime benefits in becoming involved in woodland management.

You don’t have the expertise and you’ve got enough to worry about without ploughing through the minefield of tree planting grants?

Well help is at hand with a scheme introduced by the Woodland Trust called MOREwoods. This offers to guide you through the process and if your application meets its criteria it will arrange for the grant application to be made by an experienced land agent – and it won’t cost you a penny.

Land can be used for a variety of purposes but often has a single or main use, although that is changing as more recognise the need to extract maximum value from what is often low grade land.

The main uses of land may be game, livestock farming, equestrian, tourism related, access or for community benefit – but in all cases the productive value of the land can be enhanced by adding woodland to its range of uses.

What’s more you will not have to wait till the trees mature to begin to realise the financial benefits. Argyll is not a part of Scotland where arable crops are grown to diversify the farmer’s basket of financial returns from his land, but it does grow trees very well.

• Trees stabilise and increase soil levels, provide shelter for game, livestock and people.
• Native broadleaves filter wind leading to a reduction in heating costs and CO2 emissions where planting reduces exposure for rural homes.
• Then as the crop grows it is managed and thinned, providing you with your own renewable energy as firewood or wood chips and reducing your fossil fuel dependance on the ever increasing cost of oil and coal.
• With growth rates in Argyll it is not long before woodland and shelter belt rise, sooking up some of that abundant moisture from above, reducing run off and flooding and producing woodfuel from fast growing hardwoods like ash.

If you are turned off by the phrase ‘climate change mitigation’ you needn’t be. Whatever your reason is for planting trees `9and often hard economics will win the day), the environment will win as your trees grow, locking up carbon emissions, contributing to biodiversity, habitat network chains and supplying the growing demand for woodfuel.

The minimum woodland that can be established under the scheme is 1 hectare(2.5 acres) but it need not be in a single patch. Screening and shelter belts make up the total.

All applicants will receive advice on how they can establish woodland from the Woodland Trust.

Successful applicants will be advised of the options available to them before the grant application is made on their behalf. In LFAs (Less Favoured Areas) – which includes most of Argyll – planting grants can be as much as 80% of planting costs. In certain cases the Woodland Trust may be able to top up the SRDP grant to cover the entire cost where an applicant is unable to finance the balance of the scheme.

To find out more and download an application pack, which will take only a few minutes to complete:

• go to the Woodland Trust;s website here
• phone 0845 2935689
• email morewoods@woodlandtrust.org.uk.

The closing date for the scheme  is 31st December 2009

Reporter: Russell Bruce

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